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Hi Guys,
I'm just in the process of buying a new camera and thought I'd get some help about which was the best camera in my price range..up to $400. I was looking at the pentax s50 until I came across lots of talk about the picture quality being bad etc. have also looked at the nikon 5100 and some canons and sonys. there are too many! I just want a quality camera ie sharp clean images, fairly quick response time when taking pic (immediate or close to) and good construction. Has anyone got one of the above mentioned or can recommend one in that price range?
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Hey Happy Snapper! Welcome to Shuttertalk!
I assume you're after something compact. You're right - there's a whole bunch in that category and really difficult to narrow down unless you have some specific features in mind (e.g. long zoom, image stabilisation, etc.).
In terms of brands, I usually recommend Canon for compacts, such as the A520 which has a full range of manual controls and quality lens. If you're after something more compact - maybe the S500 or SD series might be suitable too.
Let us know how you go!
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thanks for replying
I'm really not that fussed, I'm basically a point and shoot person but need a compact camera to take artworks so the resolution needs to be clear. I also do a lot of enlarging. Do you think it's better to sacrifice megapixels and say purchase a canon or go with something with 5.1meg. like the nikon or pentax? (As you can tell, I don't really know that much about cameras, but want to get value for my dollar)
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Hey HappySnapper...
The SD500 is a 7.1 megapixel but I'm not sure whether that's within your price range or not.
Personally I'd get a camera with better image quality and less resolution than a high megapixel one that gives rubbish results...
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sorry, did I mention I was after a digital compact....
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that's what I thought, so does it matter that the pixel size is smaller? will I still be able to do enlargements and not lose any picture quality? have heard conflicting reports..
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Hi NN,
I like the pentax s5i, but it's out of my price range...
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Hi again,
If you're looking for high quality prints from a camera then the following is a rough (very rough) guide to how many pixels you need for a given print size (printing at 200dpi). Remember too that you need to allow a little room for manouevre as if you need to crop a picure you'll automatically reduce the number of pixels and need to print smaller than stated here:
4 by 6 inches 800 by 1200 pixels (about 1 megapixel)
5 by 7 inches 1000 by 1400 pixels (about 1.5 megapixels)
8 by 10 inches 1600 by 2000 pixels (about 3 megapixels)
11 by 14 inches 2200 by 2800 pixels (about 6 megapixels)
16 by 20 inches 3200 by 4000 pixels (about 13 megapixels)
--NN
